Halifax

Halifax (demonym Haligonian), commonly refers to

Halifax may also refer to:

Places

Australia

Canada

British Columbia

Nova Scotia

Ship

A ship is a large buoyant watercraft. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size, shape and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas,rivers,and oceans for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing, entertainment, public safety, and warfare. Historically, a "ship" was a sailing vessel with at least three square-rigged masts and a full bowsprit.

In armed conflict and in daily life, ships have become an integral part of modern commercial and military systems. Fishing boats are used by millions of fishermen throughout the world. Military forces operate vessels for naval warfare and to transport and support forces ashore. Commercial vessels, nearly 35,000 in number, carried 7.4 billion tons of cargo in 2007. As of 2011, there are about 104,304 ships with IMO numbers in the world.

Ships were always a key in history's great explorations and scientific and technological development. Navigators such as Zheng He spread such inventions as the compass and gunpowder. Ships have been used for such purposes as colonization and the slave trade, and have served scientific, cultural, and humanitarian needs. After the 16th century, new crops that had come from and to the Americas via the European seafarers significantly contributed to the world population growth.Ship transport has shaped the world's economy into today's energy-intensive pattern.

Container ship

Container ships (sometimes spelled containerships) are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They are a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport and now carry most seagoing non-bulk cargo.

Container ship capacity is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). Typical loads are a mix of 20-foot and 40-foot (2-TEU) ISO-standard containers, with the latter predominant.

Today, about 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container, and modern container ships can carry over 19,000 TEU (e.g., MSC Zoe). Container ships now rival crude oil tankers and bulk carriers as the largest commercial vessels on the ocean.

History

There are two main types of dry cargo: bulk cargo and break bulk cargo. Bulk cargoes, like grain or coal, are transported unpackaged in the hull of the ship, generally in large volume. Break-bulk cargoes, on the other hand, are transported in packages, and are generally manufactured goods. Before the advent of containerization in the 1950s, break-bulk items were loaded, lashed, unlashed and unloaded from the ship one piece at a time. However, by grouping cargo into containers, 1,000 to 3,000 cubic feet (28 to 85 m³) of cargo, or up to about 64,000 pounds (29,000 kg), is moved at once and each container is secured to the ship once in a standardized way. Containerization has increased the efficiency of moving traditional break-bulk cargoes significantly, reducing shipping time by 84% and costs by 35%. In 2001, more than 90% of world trade in non-bulk goods was transported in ISO containers. In 2009, almost one quarter of the world's dry cargo was shipped by container, an estimated 125 million TEU or 1.19 billion metric tons worth of cargo.

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia (Latin for "New Scotland", pronounced in English as /ˌnoʊvə ˈskoʊʃə/) (French: Nouvelle-Écosse; Scottish Gaelic: Alba Nuadh; Scots: New Alba) is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces, and one of the four provinces which form Atlantic Canada. Its provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the second-smallest province in Canada, with an area of 55,284 square kilometres (21,300 sq mi), including Cape Breton and another 3,800 coastal islands. As of 2011, the population was 921,727, making Nova Scotia the second-most-densely populated province in Canada.

Etymology

Nova Scotia means New Scotland in Latin and is the recognized English language name for the province. In Scottish Gaelic, the province is called Alba Nuadh, which also simply means New Scotland. The province was first named in the 1621 Royal Charter granting the right to settle lands including modern Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Gaspé Peninsula to Sir William Alexander in 1632.

Halifax (bank)

Halifax (previously known as Halifax Building Society) is a bank operating in the United Kingdom as a trading division Bank of Scotland, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group. It is the UK's largest provider of residential mortgages and savings accounts.

It is named after the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire where it was founded as a building society in 1853. By 1913 It had developed into the UK's largest building society and continued to grow and prosper and maintained this position within the UK until 1997 when it demutualised.

In 1997 it became Halifax plc, a public limited company which was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2001 Halifax plc merged with The Governor and Company of the Bank of Scotland, forming HBOS. In 2006, the HBOS Group Reorganisation Act 2006 legally transferred the assets and liabilities of the Halifax chain to Bank of Scotland which became a standard plc, with Halifax becoming a division of Bank of Scotland. A takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB was approved by the Court of Session on 12 January 2009, and on 19 January 2009 Bank of Scotland, including Halifax, formally became part of Lloyds Banking Group.